<p>CollectivSynergy, internet was developed through a DARPA grant from DoD. Not through endowment money. If professors teach more than 1 class per semester, research suffers. There’s more to teaching than just the face time in the lecture hall. I myself spend about 6 hours preparing each 1 1/2 hour lecture in immunology I deliver, to be sure I am giving students the best presentation on the most current information. I could not lecture full-time and fulfill my grants. Not to brag, but I’m a sort of known cancer researcher designing experimental drugs for cancer. Lecture or cure cancer? My husband runs a lab course twice a year; it really cuts down on his research time and his chair slams him for it, yet teaching is his primary function (mine is research, as spelled out in our offer letters). State of the art labs get that way through extra-mural grants from agencies like the NIH, DoD, etc. Not usually through endowment funds!!</p>
<p>I wish you could visit my state medical school, where the bathrooms resemble those in bus depots (cleanliness), the elevators don’t work about 40% of the time, the air conditioning system is primitive (ruins our equipment and experiments). For this we pay a 56% overhead off our grants. That is, for every $10,000 in Federal grant money we receive, the university receives $5,600 to pay for “infrastructure.” Yet our state U has a “foundation” worth 10s of millions of bucks. Why isn’t some of the money plowed back to make repairs to our 40 year old building? I’d love the IRS to come and force them to invest in our infrastructure!</p>